The Ramblings of a Formerly Dead Man
by TheBigPotatoBoss
Summary: Hello, my name is Jadeite. You may know me as that guy who got burnt to ashes by Sailor Mars when I first fought her. What you are about to read are the ramblings of a madman. Well, okay, I'm not exactly "mad" in any respect, but if I were to tell you that I was the reincarnation of one of Endymion's guards, you would say that I was.
1. Resignation

_Summary: The ramblings of a formerly dead man named Jadeite. The Shitennou and Inner Senshi were not lovers during the Silver Millennium for this story._

 _Inspired by Hirohiko Araki's "Deadman's Questions."_

* * *

Year: 1996

Hotaru: 10 years old

Inner Senshi and Jadeite: 16 years old

Haruka and Michiru: 17 years old

Zoisite: 18 years old

Mamoru: 19 years old

Setsuna: 20 years old

Nephrite: 21 years old

Kunzite: 25 years old

* * *

Hello, my name is Jadeite. You may know me as that guy who got burnt to ashes by Sailor Mars when I first fought her. What you are about to read are the ramblings of a madman. Well, okay, I'm not exactly "mad" in any respect, but if I were to tell you that I was the reincarnation of one of Endymion's guards, you would say that I was. And let me tell you, being reincarnated twice into the same world is a disorientating thing. One moment you're dead and then _boom_ you're alive with the complete memories of how you died. Twice.

On second thought, maybe I wasn't reincarnated. Reincarnation usually means that I should have gotten another start in life, right? Because I cannot remember anything other than my life in the Silver Millennium. Well, there is something else I remember, being burned by Sailor Mars. But other than that, all sixteen years of my life in the modern world are completely gone from my mind.

When I awoke, Kunzite, Nephrite, and Zoisite were all with me. After some discussion about what we should do, we agreed that we should go to the prince. It was nice that whoever had brought us back to life put us in Tokyo. Certainly saved a lot of time having to go from the Arctic all the way to Japan. It's a pretty nice country. I couldn't read any of the signs. Luckily, I could still speak the language. All those lessons in moonspeak finally paid off. Except for the not being able to read part.

Our connection to the prince was still there and we located him. By the time that we got to his location, it was starting to get dark. Never realized how much I had missed seeing the sun set until now. We made our way up the stairs of a shrine. As soon as we reached the top, we saw the prince, along with a group of girls, making his way towards the stairs.

When we saw him, we kneeled and bowed.

"My liege," we all said.

It took moments before Endymion said, "All rise." We did as he said and stood up to face him. I looked at him with as much bravado as I could muster up. The good thing was that he seemed to be happy that we were alive. The bad thing was that the girls transformed into Sailor Senshi and looked like they were about to kill us. Not that I blame them, but interrupting a meeting between us and the prince was still very rude. And I should've known that raven haired girl was Sailor Mars. To my credit, I didn't know that the other girls were also Senshi.

"You're supposed to be dead!" a long haired blonde yelled at us. Her Senshi outfit was orange. On her right hip was a chain of beads.

"Yeah, well, and now we're not," retorted Nephrite.

"What are you doing here?" asked the girl with a brown hair in a ponytail. Her outfit was green. Looking over at the others, I noticed that their uniforms were basically the same, only with different colors as well as a few subtle differences. You'd expect such a powerful kingdom to have their guards' uniforms instill fear into the enemy, not _that_. At least give the guards classy clothing to show off wealth, like what the Earth Kingdom did with us.

"We're here to see the prince about our duties," answered Kunzite. "In private, please."

The girls tensed up even more after that. In fact, they looked like they were going to murder us. Expect for the one with violet hair and the one with blue hair. They looked a bit unsure to whether or not we were bad. At least now I know who to trust with my life if I ever survive this. The one with the long green hair was practically unreadable. I wonder how many casinos have banned her for that poker face.

The prince cleared his throat and said, "I know of a place."

The girl that was hugging his left arm asked, "Are you sure?" She had long blonde hair with… What do you ever call those things? Balls? Buns? She had two of them on each side of her head with hair continuing out from them. That must be hell to have to tie and untie. What kind of tortures will people endure just to make themselves look good?

"I'm sure, Usako," the prince assured her. He looked towards us and said, "I trust them."

"If you die, you only have yourself to blame," said the woman with short blonde hair.

"Of course," he said as he turned towards the woman. Turning back to us, he said to the girls, "Please do not follow us."

He walked past us and we followed his steps. As we walked down the stairs, I could still hear the girls saying something, probably about us. It's hard to believe that they would actually leave us alone. After all, my comrades and I argued that the Moon Kingdom's surveillance was the biggest reason we couldn't trust them. Nobody said a word as we walked in the streets.

What only took some minutes felt like hours as we approached what was Endymion's home. It was a tall apartment that reached up to twenty floors. He lived in a room on the tenth floor. The number on his room was "1010." Even in this life, ten was his lucky number, huh? His room consisted of a bedspace, a small kitchen, and a small bathroom. A narrow hallway connected the rooms together. It was such a weird sight to see the prince living in such a cramped area.

"Nice place," commented Nephrite. "Would've thought that you lived in a more, ah, _princely_ place."

"Nah," Endymion smiled. "Don't have the money for it. Besides, what would I do with all that space by myself?" He turned on the lights and walked inside to the bed space. He turned his head around the room like he was looking for something. He then walked into the kitchen and looked around there as well. We went to the entrance of the kitchen and saw the prince grabbing a chair. Then a memory clicked in my head. He was always a courteous person, making sure that everyone was comfortable.

Kunzite went towards him and said, "Allow us," Endymion let go of the chair and Kunzite moved it to where Endymion's bed space was. Nephrite, Zoisite, and I grabbed the remaining three chairs and followed. Endymion sat at the edge of his bed while the four us sat in chairs, surrounding him in a semi-circle.

"So, what was it that you wanted to talk to me about?" he asked.

"Prince Endymion," Kunzite began to answer.

"My name is now Mamoru Chiba," Mamoru interjected. "Please call me by that name."

"Mamoru," Kunzite said. "We, the Shitennou, want to resign."

"What?" The confusion was visible on his face.

"We want to resign from our duties as your guards," stated Nephrite. Mamoru folded his hands and looked down at the ground, digesting the words. I felt bad for him. Your friends and guards, who were presumed to be dead, show up out of nowhere and the first thing they do is resign.

"May I ask why?" the prince asked. Why, indeed. To be honest, I didn't know why either and I doubt that anyone else knew why. Was it because we turned against him and sided with Beryl at the end? Or was it because we were brainwashed against him during this life? Maybe it was because we felt inadequate in protecting him. But none of those reasons would've been good enough for him. He would just forgive us and say that we were acting silly.

"We want to have freedom of choice," answered Zoisite after a few minutes. "In the Silver Millennium, we were forced into our duties to be your guards by our families. In this modern world, we were reincarnated with the sole purpose of protecting you, but then were brainwashed to fight you instead. Two times in a row, we were not allowed to make our own decisions. And now that we have a third chance…"

"I understand," Mamoru nodded. I breathed a sigh of relieve. Thank the heavens for Zoisite's sharp mind. Everyone was completely silent after that. We were all uncomfortable but we couldn't just say "goodbye" and leave him like that.

It took some awkward minutes before Mamoru asked another question. "If you don't want to be my guards, can we still be friends?" Goddammit, Endymion, why do you have to be so nice all the time?

"I don't see why not," answered Nephrite, to which the prince smiled. For the rest of the evening, we had pizza for dinner and eased into a conversation about Mamoru's life. He even offered to help us get used to the modern world.

As for the girls, they reluctantly helped us as well. Although, they gave us a warning that if we backstabbed Mamoru again, they would kill us. Nephrite rolled his eyes at that. Really didn't help our past sentiments towards them. The moon princess, for whatever reason, welcomed us with open us. You'd think she would be the one most against us coming back.

The Inner Senshi and Saturn took about three weeks to trust us. The Outer Senshi, particularly Uranus and Neptune, took about four more weeks after that. I mean, come on, none of us even had our powers back yet. What could we possibly do against their abilities, bleed on them?


	2. A Meeting of Sorts

A Meeting of Sorts

Time Period: Silver Millennium

* * *

In the main meeting room of the royal palace was a huge bustle of people. The king had called a meeting with all the important people: lawmakers, generals, royals, etc. I sat alongside the rest with the Shitennou and our prince. At the corner of my eye, I could see the woman who started it all, Beryl. She was the one that had exposed the relationship between Endymion and the moon princess through the major newspapers. We, the guards, already knew that there was something going on between the two but didn't want to believe it. As the king walked up to his chair, everyone became silent.

Sitting down, the king cleared his throat. He looked around the crowd of people. When he was done, a look of disappointment was on his face.

"I see that the queen of the moon has decided to _not_ come to this meeting," he said. Angry murmurs filled the crowd. Among them were "of course she didn't" or "I knew it."

"Nevertheless," he shouted over the voices and everyone quieted. "we shall continue without her.

Now I'm sure you're all aware of the fact that my son, against all rational thinking, has developed a romantic interest with the princess of the moon. And for that, he will be gravely punished. However," He looked towards us with a heated look. "some blame must also fall on my son's guards. For they must've known about this as well."

The crowd of people turned their heads towards us. If looks could kill, I would've died on the spot. I was panicking on the inside but we were to remain calm and collected and hoped that Kunzite and Zoisite could talk our way out of this mess. They might even convince the king to lessen the punishment for Endymion.

"Your majesty," Kunzite began. "Whenever the moon princess visited, she was under our watch the entire time. And during that time, there was absolutely no romantic intentions that we had seen. What we saw was an overly enthusiastic young woman wanting to learn more about the Earth and its beauty. The prince merely led her to those places of beauty."

"Then how do you explain what Beryl had seen?" shouted a man.

"Like I said, we did not notice anything but short visits to the earth," Kunzite replied. "If anything happened, it happened without our supervision."

"Poppycock!" shouted another man. "How did you not notice such a thing! You're supposed to be his guards and to be watching over him at all times!"

"I have heard that there are secret entrances and exits that only the royal family know about," said Zoisite while looking at the king. The king nodded and Zoisite continued.

"The prince could've snuck out at any time without us noticing." All eyes were now turned towards Endymion.

"Is this true, son?" asked the king.

Endymion nodded and responded, "Yes, it is." Angry whispers began to reemerge from the crowd. The king cleared his throat as an order to stay silent.

"And may I ask why?"

"Because I love her." The crowd erupted with accusations and shouts to kill the prince.

"Traitor!" shouted a man.

"Execute him!" shouted another.

"Hang him!"

"Burn him!" shouted a noblewoman. The military leaders chose to stay silent and give disapproving glances instead.

The king closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Sighing, he shouted, "Order!"

After everyone became silent once more, he continued. "We need to think about this rationally!"

"Think about what?" argued a nobleman. "Your son has already admitted to breaking the most important law by being in love with the moon princess! He needs to be punished to the fullest extent of the law! Or are you going to let him go with nothing more than a slap on the wrist just because he is your son?"

"Let it be known that my son will get a fair and just punishment just as a nobleman or a peasant would," the king replied. "We need the details of what he did and go from there."

"You already heard him! He snuck out through the secret pathways and-"

"Your majesty, if I may speak," Kunzite interjected.

"Go ahead." said the king.

"As we all know, the Moon Kingdom has secrets and magics that not even our greatest magicians can decipher. As such, we cannot dismiss the very real possibility that the moon princess has seduced our poor prince with her wily magics."

The king hummed. After a while, he said, "Yes, that could be true."

He turned to the crowd and asked, "What say you?" The crowd was, for once, silent and with no answer. Just a second ago they wanted the prince's head and was now trying to figure out the ramifications of the princess using love magic on Endymion.

"If what the guard here is saying is true," replied a general. "Then it's as good as a war declaration against us." The crowd became still. A war with the Moon Kingdom was unthinkable. The other thought was that the queen of said kingdom was actively trying to take over the Earth with discrete methods such as this.

After what seemed to be minutes of silence, the king spoke, "Does anyone have anything else to add?"

When nobody said anything, the king said, "All right. The prince and his guards are now dismissed unless they wish to stay. Now about the matters of…"

I inwardly sighed as that disaster as narrowly avoided. Walking out of the room, we followed the prince as he walked into the garden. Sitting down on top of a boulder, he rubbed his face with the palm of his hands. After making sure that there was nobody else around, Nephrite spoke.

"Endymion," he said in a serious tone. "You know it had to be done."

"But why?"

"Because it's against the law! This isn't a story, Endy. You can't go falling in love with just anybody! You're a prince! People have to trust that you will do what's right for the people and follow the rules even if you don't want to."

"But if they could see how beautiful she is…"

"For crying out loud, man!" Nephrite groaned. "It's never been about that! It's about politics! That's what it's always been about! Don't you think if the Earth Kingdom and the Moon Kingdom got along with each other we would be happy for you?

But that's not the reality of it. The reality is that right now, everyone hates the Moon Kingdom and wants the head of any supporters of the Moon Kingdom. That's exactly why we're in the mess we're in right now. And the power of love ain't gonna fix _shit_."

"Nephrite," Kunzite glared at him.

"No swearing is a stupid rule and you _know it_ ," argued Nephrite. Zoisite interrupted the start of the argument by clearing his throat.

"While I don't appreciate how Nephrite worded it, he's right," said Zoisite to Endymion. "You need to break off all contact with the moon princess before it's too late."

"No."

"What?" I shouted.

"No," the prince repeated. "I refuse to not see her anymore just because everyone else doesn't like it."

At that moment, I was left speechless. Was he really willing to risk a war for his own desires? Looking at my superiors, they were also shocked. Sitting up, Endymion started to walk away.

"What? Did you not hear a single word of what we just said?" asked Nephrite. "Or hear a single word of the meeting we were just at? Because if you keep seeing her, they're going to kill you. They're not going to be satisfied with you being in jail. They're going to cut off your head and put it on a bloody pole."

"No matter what, I'm not going to leave her," Endymion reaffirmed.

"Think about what you're doing!" shouted Nephrite.

Leaving the garden, Endymion headed to the north area of the castle. The four of us could only stand there.

"Well, that's it," Nephrite declared as he put his hands up. "The world's going to end."

"Don't be so dramatic," said Zoisite while glaring at Nephrite. "We can still fix this."

"Fix this? And how do you propose we do that?"

"Why even try?" I asked bitterly. "Did you see his eyes? He's absolutely adamant about it."

"Because we don't want a complete all out war," Zoisite gritted out the answer. "If we play our cards right, the worst thing that might happen is Endymion being imprisoned for treason."

"Agreed," said Kunzite as he nodded. "We need to think about this carefully. However, we must continue this during the evening. We all need to tend to our duties this moment."

And with that we all scattered to our workplaces. I couldn't help but think how selfish the prince was being. Everyone in the kingdom has to sacrifice some part of their dreams for duty. I had to sacrifice my old friends and my old life as a peasant. Even though I was chosen as a guard for the prince, most noblemen still saw me as a peasant and never took me seriously. But I didn't complain. It was my duty and I had to do it. So how could the prince so easily throw away his duties in the pursuit for love?


	3. Moonchild

Ch 3: Moonchild

* * *

Since our beloved prince absolutely refused to stop seeing the moon princess, we had to up our security measures to make sure the two of them never met again. Nephrite and I would stay with the prince while Zoisite and Kunzite looked out for the moon princess. We debated with the king whether or not the secret entrances should be sealed off. Ultimately, it was decided that the entrances were too valuable for an escape. In addition, Endymion would not be able to sneak off using them with us overwatching him.

I would like to say that it is extremely infuriating that we even had to do this in the first place. This all could've been avoiding if the prince had just broke up with Serenity and apologized to the Earth's court. But no, he just had to act like a spoiled brat and remained as stubborn as a mule.

The moon princess didn't help things either. Every single night, she would come down to Earth and ask to see Endymion. Here's the encounter with her that Kunzite told me about:

" _Oh, hello, Kunzite!" the moon princess cheerfully waved in his direction. "I didn't expect you to be out this late."_

" _We've been having to work late shifts these days," Kunzite replied._

" _Why, what happened?"_

" _Princess Serenity of the Moon Kingdom, if you are here to see Prince Endymion, I'm afraid that cannot happen any longer."_

" _What?" she asked with a faltering smile._

" _By the order of the Earth's courts, you and Prince Endymion and no longer allowed to see each other or even be near each other without supervision. If you are here for anything else, I would recommend that you do it at daytime or make an appointment by either us or by mail."_

" _But… why?" she asked softly, looking like she was about to cry. At this point, Kunzite felt sorry for her._

" _The Court of Earth wills it and has passed it into law," Kunzite answered. After some seconds of silence, he continued with, "I think you should leave now."_

 _Silently and without a word, she went back to her home._

However, Princess Serenity, like the prince, would not give up on the prospect of being together. The day after:

" _What about sending letters to one another?" she pleaded._

 _Kunzite sighed but his face did not betray his emotions. "What kind of letters?" he asked._

" _Kunzite, for the love of all things holy, just tell her no," Zoisite said. He turned towards the princess._

" _No, you cannot see the prince. No, you cannot be near him. No, you cannot give any letters to him. And no, we will NOT relay any messages to him. You know why?_

 _It's because there is a goddamned rule put into place that states people from the Earth and Moon Kingdom cannot fall in love with each other or the gods will punish us! It's because the Earth's court and everyone else is looking like they want to kill us! It's because people are rioting in the streets demanding the prince's head! It's because the prince is also as stubborn as you and refuses to take any responsibility! It's because we constructed a plan to keep you away from the prince at all costs to prevent this situation from going even more downhill than it already has! It's because of all those fucking things!"_

 _He then sat down and ran his hands through his hair._

" _Zoisite," Kunzite began._

" _Listen, Kunzite, I know what you're thinking but it's not going to work. Endymion doesn't understand. And she," Zoisite pointed to Serenity. "doesn't understand either. They both don't understand that their actions have consequences! They both don't realise they broke the biggest rule and have doomed us all because of it!"_

" _We'll make plans to calm everyone down," said Kunzite. "Everything will be fine. Just a few days ago you said that Nephrite was being silly about the world ending."_

" _Well I give up. The entire world's changed over a week. Nothing can put it back into the way it was. Not anymore."_

" _I'm sorry," the princess whispered. If Zoisite had heard her (he did), he didn't respond._

" _I think I'll head home now," she announced and began to leave._

The princess of the moon would come down to Earth each and every night to try to get in contact with Endymion. It was just becoming annoying and tiring. Even with the explanations about the conflicts between the Moon and the Earth, she was unrelentless. You'd think that as a princess she should've known better!

Anyways, one of us had an idea to have the princess give letters from us to the queen. We had our suspicions that Beryl was sabotaging attempts to reach the Queen Serenity and what better way to make sure than to send letter through a direct connection.

" _So how about it?" Zoisite asked Princess Serenity. "A favor for a favor. You give our letters to your mother and we'll give your letters to our prince. The same thing applies to responses. We'll only give you Endymion's response if we get a response from your mother."_

 _The two of them locked eyes with one another. After a while, Serenity nodded. Zoisite gave her parchment, ink, and a feather to write her message. With hope in her eyes, she quickly scribbles down words onto the parchment._

 _Zoisite walks to where Kunzite is, sits down, and rests his head on his palm. He looks towards at Kunzite, who says and does nothing. Silent words are exchanged. They really shouldn't be doing this, but it was necessary to try to prevent the upcoming war. There was going to be a war, no doubt about it. The entire world was at stake. If only the two would-be rulers could understand._

 _The rest of the scene was silent. The princess finished writing and gave it to Zoisite and he gave her a letter for her mother. She leaves without a word and the two guards decided to rest for the night._

Unfortunately, there was no response from the queen. So we tried again. And again. And again. We sent her letters for an entire month and there was no response. Was she trying to piss us off or something? Were we not important enough? After a month, we gave up. We hadn't told anyone else that we had tried this. It was a good thing we didn't because this would've just added more fuel to the fire.

As time went on, the two royals stayed the same and the unrest was becoming more and more. Riots, fruit being thrown, chants for the prince's head for his betrayal, etc. Sometimes, I would've liked to point at the crowds and say to Endymion, "You see this? This is all your fault. This could've been prevented if you had just listened to us." But I didn't. And I'm not about to either.

* * *

When we told this story to the Sailor Senshi, we found out that it was Venus who told Serenity to keep on trying.

"So it was all your fault!" Nephrite and I yelled and pointed at her.

She recoiled back and laughed nervously. "Well, it wasn't _exactly_ my fault. And besides, I'm the descendant of the goddess of love! Those two were destined for one another!"

"Couldn't it have waited another life?" asked Zoisite. "The political climate on Earth made it that the two even being near each other would've caused an execution and a war."

"I didn't know it was as serious as you said it was," Venus replied.

"Did your princess tell any of you about what we said?" questioned Zoisite.

"Yes…" she nodded.

"And you still told her to go to Earth and try to be with Endymion," Nephrite stated.

"Um, yes."

The three of us glared at her with murderous intent, or that's at least what she said it was.

"So you just ignored all of our warnings?"

"I mean, when I asked the queen about it, she said that everything was going great on Earth and that there was nothing to worry about."

"The queen? The queen said that?" Nephrite repeated. Venus nodded in the affirmative.

He turned towards the princess and asked, "Your mother _did_ get our letters, right?"

"Um, I think so," she answered.

I was lost in thought after that and drowned out the resulting vulgarity from Nephrite. It was unbelievable. We wasted an entire month trying to reach out to the queen without a single word back towards us. Lying to her own subjects about our world that was doomed from her own inaction. That might've meant that she did ignore the communications from the Earth's court. So Beryl might've been innocent in that regard. Even without our letters and the attempted communications, the queen should've known what was going on. We had argued that they had too much surveillance on the Earth.

She should've known about her daughter sneaking off to Earth every night. She should've known that her daughter had a romantic relationship with our prince. She should've known about the tension between the two kingdoms. If she didn't know, then she was more incompetent that any ruler I've ever heard of. And if she did know, why did she allow it to happen? Why did she allow it to continue? Why did she allow the entire Silver Millennium to fall because of two people? Why?


	4. Fate

_Ch. 4: Fate_

 _Modern Era_

* * *

"Do you believe in fate?" I asked Rei Hino.

The both of us had been put into sweeping duty by her grandfather. The shrine had more visitors today and Rei had asked for helped. Ami and I volunteered while the others had to decline in order to catch up with their homework. It was now in the late afternoon and Ami had gone home.

Rei raised her eyebrows at my question.

"What?" I asked defensively. "I'm just trying to make some conversation. It's boring enough having to sweep the entire place."

"What about fate?" she asked back.

"Do you think that it exists at all? Like maybe you were fated to be the princess's guard or something. I know that the old Queen Serenity had you reincarnated, but do you think you would've found Usagi without the Queen's help? Or even want to help out Usagi?"

There was nothing but silence as we continued to sweep the floor while I waited for her answer.

After a few minutes, she answered, "I don't know. But does it matter? Everything that I've done and all the decisions that I've made regarding her has been from my own decisions."

I pursed my lips. "Maybe it does." I shrugged. "Maybe our lives are the way they are because it's the easiest way for us to accept our fates. For example, me and the others.

Kunzite was the son of a high ranking general and he was the leader of our group. Nephrite is amazing at close quarters combat. Zoisite is excellent in medical and defensive stuff. And I'm pretty good at archery. We were also able to pass through all the tests our commanders threw at us. If we weren't as skillful, would we have been picked to be the prince's guards?"

"Maybe you developed those skills because you had been picked," she argued. "You said you're good at archery. Would you have become as good as you are if you didn't have to be Mamoru's guard?"

"Probably," I answered. "My father was a miner and I lived near some hunters. I even practiced a bit before." I paused for a bit.

"Maybe I could've been a hunter instead," I mused.

"There's a lot of 'maybes' in this conversation," she stated.

"That's the problem with talking about probabilities, isn't it? Things may or may not happen depending on just a few circumstances."

"So why are you so interested in fate?" she asked me.

"I don't know, I guess… I wanted to… have a reason for my life?" I looked into my thoughts for a concrete answer. "Like… me being Endymion's guard, yeah? There were so many people in the world who can fight better than I can and yet I was chosen."

"But does it matter?"

"What?"

"Does the reason for you being chosen really matter? If you did know why you were chosen, would your actions have been any different?"

"I… I don't know, _maybe_?"

"Let's say that you were chosen because you were good at archery. They predicted that you would be one of the best archers in the world. What that have changed anything?"

"Yes, actually," I argued. "I would've started to perfect my archery skills sooner, resulting in me being even better at it. I would've also have had pride for my position of being the prince's guard instead of being miserable. And it would've made a lot more sense than just picking a random peasant out of nowhere with no explanation."

"All right, that may happen," she conceded. "But you are looking at the situation from the future and into the past. If you knew the reason when you were a child, would you have really done all that? Maybe you would've become too prideful and arrogant, not working as hard as you did. What if a reason you were a good guard was because you didn't know the reason for being chosen?"

I groaned. "There's way too many 'maybes' here," I muttered.

"Exactly. And we'll never know which one of those 'maybes' is true."

I stopped sweeping the floor to take a small break to stretch.

"Life is depressing to think about," I sighed.

"Life has its ups and downs. People pay too much attention to when they fail and not enough attention to when they succeed."

"But yet if we don't pay enough attention to when we fail, we can't learn how to succeed," I replied.

"True." She nodded her head a bit in agreement.

"So, how'd a grouchy person like you learn to think like that?" I jokingly asked. I already knew it had to be Usagi. I resumed sweeping and she rolled her eyes at me.

"I'm not grouchy, I just don't trust you."

"Well, I don't exactly trust you either, but you don't see me looking at you like you killed my cat or something," I countered. "There's a difference between not trusting someone and looking at someone like they're a serial killer. And besides, what the hell can I do against fire?"

"It's not that," she replied. She looked towards the sky. "Anyways, it's getting late and there aren't any more chores. You can go home now if you want to."

I looked towards the red sky with the setting sun and turned back to face her.

"What, is my company not good enough for you?" I joked.

She just stared at me. "Don't you have homework to do?" she asked in a deadpan manner.

"Nah, Zoisite bugged me until I did all of it early. Does actually help me to have a bunch more free time later on, but I'm not going to give him the satisfaction of him knowing." I resumed sweeping for a little while and looked back at the sky. The sun was nearly gone and the night sky was taking over.

"Well, I'm gonna go now," I announced.

I put the broom against the wall and took off. "See ya," I waved towards Rei.

"Bye," she waved back.

And so an entire afternoon was spent doing chores and talking about life. And Rei doesn't look like she wants to kill me or any of the guys anymore so that's good. It's always a good idea to have the Sailor Senshi not think murderous thoughts about you, I'd say.

Now if only Haruka would stop as well...


End file.
